What If She Had?
by soulache
Summary: Please, open your eyes. Please." G-Spin


**1. **

"Please, open your eyes. Please," Spinelli pleaded to Georgie's seemingly boneless body. He rested his one hand on her hip, his other stroked her cheek. Her skin was ominously cold to the touch. Spinelli had thought his hands were cold, but no,_ this_ was cold. This is what the color blue must feel like, he thought somewhat senselessly. 

"Take a breath, please," his fingers searched the hollow beneath her jawline. The snow fell serenely around him mocking the despair, anguish, and intense need as he prayed. He prayed right then harder, and more true to feel a pulse than he had ever prayed for anything before.

"Please. Wise, lovely Georgie, please," Spinelli desperately shouted. Was she too far away to hear him? He left his fingers for what seemed like ages just waiting for that sign of life, just waiting and praying and needing.

Knowing it was time to give up his other hand fumbled into his baggy jean pocket for his cellphone and that's when he felt it. It was barely anything. It was a flame flickering in the wind, the almost imaginary dance of butterfly wings, but he had felt it. Georgie's heartbeat, weak but for a moment there.

* * *

_"You shouldn't be here," a voice said from behind Georgie. Where was here, anyway? Georgie looked around and couldn't make out anything. Everything was blurry and gray, but she could feel the cement steps under her as she drew her knees against her chest. _

"A lot of people would say the same about you," Georgie replied as she turned her head to glance at Emily. She had not changed from the day she had died, still decked out in her ball gown and make-up. Emily picked up her skirts and took a seat next to Georgie, and Georgie noted Emily didn't seem cold like her. Why was she cold if she was dead?

"You're not dead," Emily said as if reading her mind. "You're stuck here in the in between, the delicate thread between life and death.

"You think they could've made it a little bit warmer," Georgie joked lamely rubbing her hands together. Numb, she decided. She was numb.

"You can't wander too far from your body," Emily said tilting her head slightly to the side, staring intently where Georgie could only see gray.

"So, I'm not dead?" Emily shook her head. "I'm not dead, but I'm close?"

"Very close, Georgie," Emily replied taking her freezing hands in her warm, bare ones.

"Why am I not dead? I should be dead," Georgie stated and cringed. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. A wistful smile passed across Emily's beautiful features, it reminded Georgie of the way Emily used to smile at Nikolas, only sadder.

"Someone true of heart, very true of heart is praying for you. And someone heard it," Emily said as she stood up once more.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Take a look," Emily said with a wave of her hand in the direction she had once been staring. Suddenly the gray parted and everything was a little too clear and painful.

Spinelli.

He was begging her to take a breath, to open her eyes for him. His movements were frantic and uncontrolled. She watched him check for her pulse still pleading to her useless frame. She saw his eyes, they were darkly filled with indescribable pain, and she watched as his tears fell onto her skin.

"Oh God," Georgie uttered as she felt like her heart was breaking. Suddenly the gray was shielding the scene again and she felt light, like she was floating away. "No! No, Emily. I can't die," Georgie begged, the reality of the situation fully hitting her.

"You're not dying. It's just time to go back."

Emily placed a delicate hand on her cheek and somewhere distant, somewhere far, far away she felt it change from soft and small to large and slightly calloused.

* * *

As soon as Spinelli had felt the heartbeat he had called 911 as quickly as humanly possible and started CPR in fear it would stop all together again. He kept his fingers in place until they arrived and her heartbeat never did stop, though it was weak and slow. 

"Is she breathing?" Spinelli heard as a paramedic rushed to his side.

"S-shallow and full of struggle, but she does indeed breathe," Spinelli said quickly, tripping over his own words. It had seemed to take hours for them to get her, but only seconds to get her into the ambulance. Spinelli spent the ride calling her family, and assuring them that though the situation was critical that the fair and lovely Georgie was alive.

Spinelli and Georgie were the first to arrive at the hospital, though he could imagine Mac with his sirens on and almost running down pedestrians to get here and God knew about Maxie. He watched as a frenzy of scrubs surrounded Georgie's body. They seemed to move as an entity, flurrying here and there, buzzing. It made Spinelli dizzy. Then Georgie was swept behind those doors, the doors he was not allowed past.

Sinking down into the soft cushion of the waiting room chair he laid a hand over his heart. It was still beating much too quickly and he wondered if he might be the one to die tonight. Hanging his head into his hands he closed his eyes, red and sore from crying, and resumed praying to every God he could think of.

All he needed was for one to hear his voice, a voice which he knew in the grand scheme would be no greater than the softest of whispers, than the softest of heartbeats in raw, ivory necks. _  
_


End file.
